In a spiritual world of quick fixes and vague emotion, is it crazy to believe there is still a place for insights based on simple, basic, theological understanding. I believe it is worth exploring.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Trusting God Through Change

What do we do when faced with an seemingly overwhelming
enemy? What do we do when the situation seems black? Do we trust God or trust
ourselves? Christianity in the United States has for some time been going
through a crisis. There have been various ways of responding to this crisis.
Some good and many not so good. Some Christians have responded with extremes of
accommodation, even though Scripture warns against this (1 John 2:15-17; James
4:4; Romans 12:1,2). Others have reacted with extremes of hostility, even though
Scripture also forbids this (2 Timothy 2:24-26; 1 Peter 3:15; Colossians
4:5,6). Still others have tended to trust in their own organization and methods
to carry the day (Psalms 127:1,2; 1 Corinthians 2:1,2; Isaiah 31:1). How then
should we approach this?

In the Old Testament we see many times when the nation of
Israel was faced with attacks from foreign enemies. And they faced a choice:
should they trust in their ability and their strategy(2 Chronicles 16:1-12; 25:5-16;28:16-21) or trust in God (2 Chronicles
14:9-15; 20:5-25; 32:1-23)? In the same way we face the same challenge today:
will we trust in God (Proverbs 3:5,6; Psalms 37:3-6; Isaiah 40:31) or will we
trust our own strategies, like those mentioned above? Now God is in control of
the world (Ephesians 1:11; Romans 8:28; Isaiah 43:13), and He will preserve His
people and His message (Romans 11:5; Matthew 16:18; Jude 3).

Nor is this a mere claim, but it is borne out in church
history. The Romans tried to persecute the Christian church out of existence,
but it endured and ultimately triumphed. Soon thereafter it looked like the
Arians (those who denied the deity of Christ) had control of the government and
would impose their beliefs on the church, but the situation ultimately turned
back around. At the time of the fall of Rome, the area was inundated with
peoples who were pagan and Arian and who conquered the existing population, but
they were ultimately converted. In the middle of the Middle Ages, the
established church had become lackadaisical and was threatened by Islam from
without and challenges from philosophy and false theology from within, but it
made it through. The Renaissance saw a church riddled by corruption and
dominated by bad doctrine, but the Protestant Reformation arose to restore
genuine Christianity. The Enlightenment, with its bent toward humanistic
philosophical beliefs such as Deism, threatened to depart from historic
Christianity, but the great revivals and awakenings acted to prevent this. The
nineteenth century, with the advent of Darwinism and Higher Criticism,
threatened to secularize society, but it failed of its object. Even in recent
times it looked like Communism would stand in permanent opposition to
Christianity, and many felt it would ultimately conquer; then the Wall fell.
Today we are faced with a similar crisis, but I see every reason to believe
that God will once more bring us through. But we need to trust Him and not our
own abilities and resources.